“
people used to tell me that i had beautiful hands
told me so often, in fact, that one day i started to believe them until i asked my photographer father, “hey daddy could i be a hand model”
to which he said no way,
i dont remember the reason he gave me and i wouldve been upset,
but there were far too many stuffed animals to hold
too many homework assignment to write,
too many boys to wave at
too many years to grow,
we used to have a game, my dad and i about holding hands cus we held hands everywhere, and every time either he or i would whisper a great
big number to the other, pretending that we were keeping track of how many times we had held hands that we were sure, this one had to be 8 million 2 thousand 7 hundred and fifty three.
hands learn more than minds do,
hands learn how to hold other hands,
how to grip pencils and mold poetry,
how to tickle pianos and dribble a basketball,
and grip the handles of a bicycle
how to hold old people, and touch babies ,
i love hands like i love people,
they're the maps and compasses in which we navigate our way through life, some people read palms to tell your future,
but i read hands to tell your past,
each scar marks the story worth telling,
each calloused palm,
each cracked knuckle is a missed punch
or years in a factory,
now ive seen middle eastern hands clenched in middle eastern fists pounding against each other like war drums, each country sees theyre fists as warriors and others as enemies.
even if fists alone are only hands. but this is not about politics, no hands arent about politics, this is a poem about love, and fingers. fingers interlock like a beautiful zipper of prayer.
one time i grabbed my dads hands so that our fingers interlocked perfectly but he changed positions, saying no that hand hold is for your mom.
kids high five, but grown ups, we learn how to shake hands, you need a firm hand shake,but dont hold on too tight, but dont let go too soon, but dont hold down for too long,
but hands are not about politics, when did it become so complicated. i always thought its simple.
the other day my dad looked at my hands, as if seeing them for the first time, and with laughter behind his eye lids, with all the seriousness a man of his humor could muster, he said you know you got nice hands, you could’ve been a hand model, and before the laughter can escape me, i shake my head at him, and squeeze his hand, 8 million 2 thousand 7hundred and fifty four.
”
”
Sarah Kay
“
When a person dies and no one will miss them, the mourning is assigned to a random human. This is why you sometimes just feel sad.
”
”
Night Vale podcast
“
Hello, there should be more advice about dealing with depression when you're stupid and worthless, so here is a self help exercise.
Today's assignment is simple. Just go out and get on the bus.
It doesn't matter which bus. Whichever bus comes next. Get on, and just go. You could ride that bus to the very end, thank the driver, and then walk into the woods and just die. Just lay down right there and wait and wait until you were dead. Who is going to miss you?
Really, think about it. If you went out to the middle of nowhere and just sat down in a ditch and cried by yourself until you were dead, who would be the first person to wonder where you'd gone?
Call them up! Maybe they want to get ice cream?
”
”
Joey Comeau
“
Robyn looked over to her friends’ spaces. Eric, Dylan, and Zack had assigned spots, three in a row. Zack’s car was there. Eric’s and Dylan’s were missing.
”
”
Dave Cullen (Columbine)
“
She seemed pleasantly surprised that I’d read the homework assignment the night before, despite being somewhat distracted by the thoughts of gremlins lurking around my computer. Apparently satisfied that I could listen and stare out the window at the same time, Miss Singer finally left me alone, and I went back to brooding in peace.
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Lost Prince (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten, #1))
“
Are the Trials starting?” The girl claps her hands over her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I—”
“It's all right.” I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. “I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?”
“S-slave-Girl.” Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.
“Right. You work for the Commandant?” I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body parts.
But the girl nods in response to my question. Don't let my mother break you, I think. The girl meets my eyes, and there is that feeling again, low and hot and consuming. Don't be weak. Fight. Escape.
A gust of wind whips a strand free from her bun and across her cheekbone. Defiance flashes across her face as she holds my gaze, and for a second, I see my own desire for freedom mirrored, intensified in her eyes. It's something I've never detected in the eyes of a fellow student, let alone a Scholar slave. For one strange moment, I feel less alone.
But then she looks down, and I wonder at my own naiveté. She can't fight. She can't scape. Not from Blackcliff. I smile joylessly; in this, at least, the slave and I are more similar than she'll ever know.
”
”
Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1))
“
P.S. Nothing personal, but I think this journal assignment is a waste of time. I know I have to do something to make up for all the work I'm missing at school, but I HATE busywork. And that's what this journal thing is. Half the teachers at school assign work they never read. When we get stupid assignments like that, I always write somewhere on my paper "blah blah blah" or "I bet you're not even reading this," are you? or "Give me a sign if you're reading this." They never are.
”
”
Kate Klise (Trial by Journal)
“
Does it occur to you that if he set his mind to it, Steve could be a truly excellent supervillain?” Clint said into the comm unit, not bothering with any sort of segue. He knew very well who it was.
“We have a contingency plan in place for that,” Coulson said without missing a beat.
In the background, Steve said, “Wait, what?”
“Oh, c'mon.” Stark sounded seriously insulted. “If anyone here is going to go the black leather and weather control ray route, it's gonna be me, let's not even kid ourselves.”
“Every active SHIELD employee has a wallet card instructing them what to do in the event you go supervillain, Stark. It's standard equipment.”
A beat of silence. “What?” Tony asked.
“I got one,” Bruce said. “Want to see it?”
“If you show it to him, it'll defeat the purpose of having a plan,” Natasha said. “And I like this plan, it's a good plan, I do not want to go through them trying to come up with something else.”
“Yes, I want to see it,” Tony said. “Thor, did you get a card?”
“Verily. Their plan is most sound. I believe we will be able to subdue you with great swiftness, before you have much chance to hurt yourself or others. The damage to property will, of course, be massive, but such things are to be expected.”
“What the hell? You will not be able to subdue me quickly. Screw you, I am wily and brilliant.”
“I didn't get one,” Steve said, and there was a loud sound of no one being surprised.
“It's not a good idea to warn the bait that-” Clint started...
”
”
Scifigrl47 (Ordinary Workplace Hazards, Or SHIELD and OSHA Aren't On Speaking Terms (In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family Was Assigned by Nick Fury), #2))
“
Journalism, to me, is just another drug – a free ride to scenes I'd probably miss if I stayed straight. But I'm neither a chemist nor an editor; all I do is take the pill or the assignment and see what happens. Now and then I get a bad trip, but experience has made me more careful about what I buy... so if you have a good pill I'm open; I'll try almost anything that hasn't bitten me in the past.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976)
“
That doesn’t sound invisible to me.” “I’m saying it wrong, then.” Lydia searched for a better way to explain. “She was always holding herself back. She was cocaptain, not captain. She could’ve dated the quarterback, but she dated his brother instead. She could’ve been top in her class, but she’d purposefully turn in a paper late or miss an assignment so she’d fall closer to the middle. She would know about Mauna Kea, but she would say Everest because winning would bring too much attention.
”
”
Karin Slaughter (Pretty Girls)
“
What is missing in our economic system is a central value that can encompass everything that can be transacted and used to assign the proper relative value to everything.
”
”
Ilchi Lee (Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential)
“
Unfortunately, the long arm of Will Grayson stretched all the way into the teacher’s gradebook and changed my zero to a hundred percent, despite the missing assignment.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4))
“
The Empire was crumbling every day. Trillions of people were free because of the Rebellion. Because she was a general running a battle group instead of a cell leader flying the Ghost on one mad assignment or another.
Still, she missed her old crew. Her family.
She wished they all could have been with her aboard the Lodestar.
”
”
Alexander Freed (Alphabet Squadron (Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron, #1))
“
Whereas the craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you. This mindset is how most people approach their working lives. There are two reasons why I dislike the passion mindset (that is, two reasons beyond the fact that, as I argued in Rule #1, it’s based on a false premise). First, when you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyperaware of what you don’t like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness. This is especially true for entry-level positions, which, by definition, are not going to be filled with challenging projects and autonomy—these come later. When you enter the working world with the passion mindset, the annoying tasks you’re assigned or the frustrations of corporate bureaucracy can become too much to handle. Second, and more serious, the deep questions driving the passion mindset—“Who am I?” and “What do I truly love?”—are essentially impossible to confirm. “Is this who I really am?” and “Do I love this?” rarely reduce to clear yes-or-no responses. In other words, the passion mindset is almost guaranteed to keep you perpetually unhappy and confused, which probably explains why Bronson admits, not long into his career-seeker epic What Should I Do With My Life? that “the one feeling everyone in this book has experienced is of missing out on life.
”
”
Cal Newport (So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love)
“
It's not that I'm complaining,' said Angua, 'but when we were assigned this job I thought it was me who was going to be the decoy and you who was going to be the back up, Nobby.'
'Yeah, but what with you bein' . . .' Nobby's expression creased as he edged his way into
unfamiliar linguistic territory, '... mor phor . . . log . . . is . . : ally gifted. . .'
'A werewolf, Nobby. I know the word.'
'Right . . . well, obviously, you'd be a lot better at lurkin', an' . . . an' obviously it's not right, women havin' to act as decoys in police work. . .'
Angua hesitated, as she so often did when attempting to talk to Nobby on difficult matters, and waved her hands in front of her as if trying to shape the invisible dough of her thoughts.
'It's just that . . . I mean, people might . . .' she began. 'I mean . . . well, you know what people call men who wear wigs and gowns, don't you?'
'Yes, miss.'
'You do?'
'Yes, miss. Lawyers, miss.'
'Good. Yes. Good,' said Angua slowly. 'Now try another one . . .'
'Er . . . actors, miss?'
Angua gave up. 'You look good in taffeta, Nobby,' she said.
'You don't think it makes me look too fat?'
Angua sniffed. 'Oh, no . . .' she said quietly.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (The Fifth Elephant (Discworld, #24; City Watch, #5))
“
The ability to simply look without motive is missing in the world today. Everybody is a psychological creature, wanting to assign meaning to everything. Seeking is not about looking for something. It is about enhancing your perception, your very faculty of seeing.
”
”
Sadhguru (Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy)
“
The key to team success is trust”
Bob Mayer said this in an article about indie publishing; he was referring to military ops. This also rings very true in football-missed assignments are more often the result of a lack of trust in the teammate next door than a lapse in memory.
”
”
Bob Mayer
“
Is your job thinking?” Snowfall shouted, making him jump. “ARE YOU AN EXPERT THINKER? Did we accidentally assign you to scouting because we missed your GIANT AMAZING BRAIN and all the AMAZING THINKS it could have shared with us?! DOES IT SEEM LIKELY THAT YOUR THINKING WOULD INTEREST ME?
”
”
Tui T. Sutherland (The Dangerous Gift (Wings of Fire #14))
“
He had been an indifferent father, better than his own, perhaps, but that was saying very little. When Tommy was still an unknown fishboy inside Rosa, Sammy had resolved never to let him feel abandoned, never to walk out on him, and until now, until tonight, he had managed to keep the promise, though there were times—the night he had decided to take that job at Gold Star Comics, for example—when it had been difficult. But the truth was that, for all his noble intentions, if you didn’t count the hours when the boy was sleeping, then Sammy had missed out on most of his childhood. Like many boys, Sammy supposed, Tommy had done most of his growing up when the man he called his father was not around, in the spaces between their infrequent hours together. Sammy wondered if the indifference that he had attributed to his own father was, after all, not the peculiar trait of one man but a universal characteristic of fathers. Maybe the “youthful wards” that he routinely assigned to his heroes—a propensity that would, from that day forward, enter into comics lore and haunt him for the rest of his life—represented the expression not of a flaw in his nature but of a deeper and more universal wish.
”
”
Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay)
“
When you lose something, there's a chance you might find it again. Keys, a missing homework assignment, a few extra pounds. But Pup would never find Patrick. He couldn't feel him anywhere. There was no rainbow, no familiar song, no ghostly scent floating in the air...Patrick wasn't lost he was just dead.
”
”
Jessie Ann Foley (Sorry For Your Loss)
“
Here's what I think: when you're born, you're assigned a brain like you're assigned a desk, a nice desk, with plenty of pigeonholes and drawers and secret compartments. At the start, it's empty, and then you spend your life filling it up. You're the only one who understands the filing system, you amass some clutter, sure, but somehow it works: you're asked the capital of Oregon, and you say Salem; you want to remember your first-grade teacher's name, and there it is, Miss Fox. Then suddenly you're old, and though everything's still in your brain, it's crammed so tight that when you try to remember the name of the guy who does the upkeep on your lawn, your first childhood crush comes fluttering out, or the persistent smell of tomato soup in a certain Des Moines neighborhood.
”
”
Elizabeth McCracken (Niagara Falls All Over Again)
“
One morning last week He gave me an assignment: for one day I was to go on a "fast" from criticism. I was not to criticize anybody about anything. Into my mind crowded all the usual objections, "But then what happens to value judgments? You yourself, Lord, spoke of 'righteous judgment.' How could society operate without standards and limits?" All such resistance was brushed aside, "Just obey Me without questioning: an absolute fast on any critical judgments for this day." ...Barbed comments about certain world leaders were suppressed. In our talkative family no one seemed to notice. Bemused, I noticed that my comments were not missed. The federal government, the judicial system, and the institutional church could somehow get along without my penetrating observations. ...That afternoon, a specific, positive vision for this life was dropped into my mind with God's unmistakable hallmark on it-joy. Ideas began to flow in a way I had not experienced in years. My critical nature had not corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with. What it had done was stifle my creativity-in prayer, in relationships, perhaps even in writing-ideas that He wanted to give me.
”
”
Catherine Marshall (A Closer Walk)
“
We had the experience but missed the meaning,
And approach to the meaning restores the experience In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness
”
”
T.S. Eliot (Four Quarters)
“
Missed tests, deadlines, assignments – got late, stopped brushing hair and teeth … didn’t even get out of bed for days. Not a single ping on my mobile to ask if I were okay.
”
”
Sijdah Hussain (Red Sugar, No More)
“
was first assigned security protection during the primaries, when I was a governor viewed as a long shot for the nomination.
”
”
Bill Clinton (The President Is Missing)
“
if you really want to know spirituality, don’t look for anything. People think spirituality is about looking for God or truth or the ultimate. The problem is you have already defined what you are looking for. It is not the object of your search that is important; it is the faculty of looking. The ability to simply look without motive is missing in the world today. Everybody is a psychological creature, wanting to assign meaning to everything. Seeking is not about looking for something. It is about enhancing your perception, your very faculty of seeing.
”
”
Sadhguru (Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy)
“
One morning last week He gave me an assignment: for one day I was to go on a "fast" from criticism. I was not to criticize anybody about anything. Into my mind crowded all the usual objections, "But then what happens to value judgments? You yourself, Lord, spoke of 'righteous judgment.' How could society operate without standards and limits?" All such resistance was brushed aside, "Just obey Me without questioning: an absolute fast on any critical judgments for this day." ...Barbed comments about certain world leaders were suppressed. In our talkative family no one seemed to notice. Bemused, I noticed that my comments were not missed. The federal government, the judicial system, and the institutional church could somehow get along without my penetrating observations. ...That afternoon, a specific, positive vision for this life was dropped into my mind with God's unmistakable hallmark on it-joy. Ideas began to flow in a way I had not experienced in years. My critical nature had not corrected a single one of the multitudinous things I found fault with. What it had done was stifle my creativity-in prayer, in relationships, perhaps even in writing-ideas that He wanted to give me.
”
”
Catherine Marshall (Something More : In Search of a Deeper Faith)
“
I could not deny that in this attractive city, without compelling assignments or any deadlines to reach for, all painful catalysts for growth had been eliminated, erased from my existence like the rogue lines in a sketch—the unexpected marks that make the picture’s expression passionate and real, gone now. Living here, I was growing complacent again, seduced by a stagnant state of mind I hated to indulge—
”
”
Aspen Matis (Your Blue Is Not My Blue: A Missing Person Memoir)
“
Copper Falls was a place where your role was assigned early and permanently; once people had decided who you were, they’d simply never allow you to be anyone else. Your label was what it was, for better or for worse.
”
”
Kat Rosenfield (No One Will Miss Her)
“
Charlie Polard was a former news anchor, now field reporter, whose star had been falling rapidly the past year. Consequently, his constant need to use Jack Daniels as his career coach had caused him to nearly miss several assignments.
”
”
Barry Sierer (New China)
“
I wanted to tell Sam this. I wanted to tell him all of it, in beautiful handwritten letters or at least in long, rambling emails that we would later save and print out and that would be found in the attic of our house when we had been married fifty years for our grandchildren to coo over. But I was so tired those first few weeks that all I did was email him about how tired I was.
I'm so tired. I miss you.
Me too.
No, like really, really tired. Like cry at TV advertisements and fall asleep while brushing my teeth and end up with toothpaste all over my chest tired.
Okay, now you got me.
I tried not to mind how little he emailed me. I tried to remind myself that he was doing a real, hard job, saving lives and making a difference, while I was sitting outside manicurists' studios and running around Central Park.
His supervisor had changed the rota. He was working four nights on the trot and still waiting to be assigned a new permanent partner. That should have made it easier for us to talk but somehow it didn't. I would check in on my phone in the minutes I had free every evening but that was usually the time he was heading off to begin his shift.
Sometimes I felt curiously disjointed, as if I had simply dreamt him up.
One week, he reassured me. One more week.
How hard could it be?
”
”
Jojo Moyes (Still Me (Me Before You, #3))
“
Wait—Sir Astin testified at the Tribunal that the lists for that assignment were given at random,” she argued. “Of course I did! I couldn’t exactly say, ‘I’m with the Black Swan and this was part of our plan!’ This is what I mean, Miss Foster. Disguises require lies.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4))
“
KNOWN ABILITIES: Empath [DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING ELSE MY MOM TELLS YOU] RESIDENCE: The Shores of Solace and Candleshade [ANYONE WANNA TRADE LIVES WITH ME?] IMMEDIATE FAMILY: Lord Cassius Sencen (father); Lady Gisela Sencen (mother) [AKA: WORST. PARENTS. EVER!] MATCH STATUS: Unregistered [TRY NOT TO BE TOO HEARTBROKEN, PEOPLE] [THOUGH I GOTTA SAY: I DON’T REALLY GET WHY EVERYONE PAYS SO MUCH ATTENTION TO THIS.] EDUCATION: Current Foxfire prodigy [AND PROUD DETENTION RECORD–HOLDER] NEXUS: No longer required [BECAUSE I’M COOL LIKE THAT] PATHFINDER: Not assigned. Restricted to Leapmasters and home crystals. [HA, THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK!] SPYBALL APPROVAL: None [BUT I HAVE FRIENDS WITH CONNECTIONS, THAT’S ALL I’M SAYING.…] MEMBER OF THE NOBILITY: No [THANK GOODNESS] TITLE: None [UM, HELLO, WHAT ABOUT LORD HUNKYHAIR? THAT’S A THING!] NOBLE ASSIGNMENT: None [MASTER MISCHIEF-MAKER] SIGNIFICANT CONNECTIONS: Fealty-sworn member of the Black Swan; former Wayward at Exillium; son to one of the leaders of the Neverseen [SWORN PROTECTOR OF THE MYSTERIOUS MISS F] ASSIGNED BODYGUARD(S): Ro (ogre) [AND SHE KNOWS, LIKE, 500,000 WAYS TO KILL YOU! SO IT’S REALLY NOT A GOOD IDEA TO MESS WITH US!]
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
Putting It into Practice: Neutralizing Negativity Use the techniques below anytime you’d like to lessen the effects of persistent negative thoughts. As you try each technique, pay attention to which ones work best for you and keep practicing them until they become instinctive. You may also discover some of your own that work just as well. ♦ Don’t assume your thoughts are accurate. Just because your mind comes up with something doesn’t necessarily mean it has any validity. Assume you’re missing a lot of elements, many of which could be positive. ♦ See your thoughts as graffiti on a wall or as little electrical impulses flickering around your brain. ♦ Assign a label to your negative experience: self-criticism, anger, anxiety, etc. Just naming what you are thinking and feeling can help you neutralize it. ♦ Depersonalize the experience. Rather than saying “I’m feeling ashamed,” try “There is shame being felt.” Imagine that you’re a scientist observing a phenomenon: “How interesting, there are self-critical thoughts arising.” ♦ Imagine seeing yourself from afar. Zoom out so far, you can see planet Earth hanging in space. Then zoom in to see your continent, then your country, your city, and finally the room you’re in. See your little self, electrical impulses whizzing across your brain. One little being having a particular experience at this particular moment. ♦ Imagine your mental chatter as coming from a radio; see if you can turn down the volume, or even just put the radio to the side and let it chatter away. ♦ Consider the worst-case outcome for your situation. Realize that whatever it is, you’ll survive. ♦ Think of all the previous times when you felt just like this—that you wouldn’t make it through—and yet clearly you did. We’re learning here to neutralize unhelpful thoughts. We want to avoid falling into the trap of arguing with them or trying to suppress them. This would only make matters worse. Consider this: if I ask you not to think of a white elephant—don’t picture a white elephant at all, please!—what’s the first thing your brain serves up? Right. Saying “No white elephants” leads to troops of white pachyderms marching through your mind. Steven Hayes and his colleagues studied our tendency to dwell on the forbidden by asking participants in controlled research studies to spend just a few minutes not thinking of a yellow jeep. For many people, the forbidden thought arose immediately, and with increasing frequency. For others, even if they were able to suppress the thought for a short period of time, at some point they broke down and yellow-jeep thoughts rose dramatically. Participants reported thinking about yellow jeeps with some frequency for days and sometimes weeks afterward. Because trying to suppress a self-critical thought only makes it more central to your thinking, it’s a far better strategy to simply aim to neutralize it. You’ve taken the first two steps in handling internal negativity: destigmatizing discomfort and neutralizing negativity. The third and final step will help you not just to lessen internal negativity but to actually replace it with a different internal reality.
”
”
Olivia Fox Cabane (The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism)
“
Life is too short to hang around people who are causing you to compromise. Pulling you down. Your time is too valuable to waste it with people who don't have a dream. People that aren't going anywhere.
You don't need to make some big announcement, but little by little, you should spend less time with them.
'Joel, what if I hurt their feelings, what if they get upset?'
What if you miss your destiny?
What if they are keeping you from going to the next level?
When you come to the end of life, you won't stand before people, you will stand before God.
He has entrusted you with a gift, you have an assignment, there is something for you to accomplish. you have a responsibility to become who God has created you to be. You have to take bold steps to protect what you are feeding.
”
”
Joel Osteen
“
But your last letter… I am so good at missing things. At making myself not see. I stand at a cliff’s edge, and–hell.
I love you, Blue.
Have I always? Haven’t I?
When did it happen? Or has it always happened? Like your victory, love spreads back through time. It claims our earliest association, our battles and losses. Assassinations become assignations. There was, I am sure, a time I did not know you. Or did I dream that me, as I’ve so often dreamed of you? Have we always fulfilled one another in the chase? I remember hunting you through Samarkand, thrilling to think I might touch the loosening strands of your hair.
I want to be a body for you.
I want to chase you, find you, I want to be eluded and teased and adored; I want to be defeated and victorious–I want you to cut me, sharpen me. I want to drink tea beside you in ten years or a thousand.
”
”
Amal El-Mohtar (This Is How You Lose the Time War)
“
Anything Bunny wrote was bound to be alarmingly original, since he began with such odd working materials and managed to alter them further by his befuddled scrutiny, but the John Donne paper must have been the worst of all the bad papers he ever wrote (ironic, given that it was the only thing he ever wrote that saw print. After he disappeared, a journalist asked for an excerpt from the missing young scholar's work and Marion gave him a copy of it, a laboriously edited paragraph of which eventually found its way into People magazine).
Somewhere, Bunny had heard that John Donne had been acquainted with Izaak Walton, and in some dim corridor of his mind this friendship grew larger and larger, until in his mind the two men were practically interchangeable. We never understood how this fatal connection had established itself: Henry blamed it on Men of Thought and Deed, but no one knew for sure. A week or two before the paper was due, he had started showing up in my room about two or three in the morning, looking as if he had just narrowly escaped some natural disaster, his tie askew and his eyes wild and rolling. 'Hello, hello,' he would say, stepping in, running both hands through his disordered hair. 'Hope I didn't wake you, don't mind if I cut on the lights, do you, ah, here we go, yes, yes…' He would turn on the lights and then pace back and forth for a while without taking off his coat, hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head. Finally he would stop dead in his tracks and say, with a desperate look in his eye: 'Metahemeralism.
Tell me about it. Everything you know. I gotta know something about metahemeralism.'
'I'm sorry. I don't know what that is.'
'I don't either,' Bunny would say brokenly. 'Got to do with art or pastoralism or something. That's how I gotta tie together John Donne and Izaak Walton, see.' He would resume pacing.
'Donne. Walton. Metahemeralism. That's the problem as I see it.'
'Bunny, I don't think "metahemeralism" is even a word.'
'Sure it is. Comes from the Latin. Has to do with irony and the pastoral. Yeah. That's it. Painting or sculpture or something, maybe.'
'Is it in the dictionary?'
'Dunno. Don't know how to spell it. I mean' – he made a picture frame with his hands – 'the poet and the fisherman. Parfait. Boon companions. Out in the open spaces. Living the good life. Metahemeralism's gotta be the glue here, see?'
And so it would go, for sometimes half an hour or more, with Bunny raving about fishing, and sonnets, and heaven knew what, until in the middle of his monologue he would be struck by a brilliant thought and bluster off as suddenly as he had descended.
He finished the paper four days before the deadline and ran around showing it to everyone before he turned it in.
'This is a nice paper, Bun -,' Charles said cautiously.
'Thanks, thanks.'
'But don't you think you ought to mention John Donne more often? Wasn't that your assignment?'
'Oh, Donne,' Bunny had said scoffingly. 'I don't want to drag him into this.'
Henry refused to read it. 'I'm sure it's over my head, Bunny, really,' he said, glancing over the first page. 'Say, what's wrong with this type?'
'Triple-spaced it,' said Bunny proudly.
'These lines are about an inch apart.'
'Looks kind of like free verse, doesn't it?'
Henry made a funny little snorting noise through his nose.
'Looks kind of like a menu,' he said.
All I remember about the paper was that it ended with the sentence 'And as we leave Donne and Walton on the shores of Metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.' We wondered if he would fail.
”
”
Donna Tartt (The Secret History)
“
Dear Dan,
Do you have general advice for how to approach diffıcult decisions?
D.A.: Luckily the technology you need to solve this problem is already at your disposal. All you need is a coin. Assign each car to a side of the coin, flip it high in the air. At this point, you can wait until the coin lands, and use this random device to make your choice - but my guess is that when the coin is in the air, you will realize which car is the one you really want.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Irrationally yours : On Missing Socks, Pick-up Lines and Other Existential Puzzles)
“
{W]hat counts in therapy is not techniques but rather the human relation between doctor and patient, or the personal and existential encounter.
[...] A purely technological approach to psychotherapy may block its therapeutic effect. [...] [A]s soon and as long as we actually interpret our assignment merely in terms of techniques and dynamics we have missed the point—and we have missed the hearts of those to whom we wish to offer mental First Aid in their predicament.
”
”
Viktor E. Frankl (The Feeling of Meaninglessness: A Challenge to Psychotherapy and Philosophy)
“
She picked up the phone and dialed her partner. Several seconds later, she heard a deep husky voice at the other end. It was a recording.
"Rick Bonito here! Private investigator for the Moore Detective Agency! Leave a message, please."
"Hey, Rick!" said Amelia. "I've got an assignment for you that needs your expertise. Breaking and entering! Give me a call."
Amelia smiled after hanging up the phone. With that kind of message, she should be getting a return call soon.
”
”
Linda Weaver Clarke (The Missing Heir (Amelia Moore Detective Series #3))
“
And, if we teachers are honest with ourselves, it may be easier to assign a zero when a student misses an assignment than to pressure and support the student to complete it. It can be time-consuming and exhausting for the teacher to call parents and caregivers or require students to stay after school until assignments are completed. Yet if we’re committed to making our grades accurate, we can’t give a grade until we have sufficient evidence of a student’s actual level of achievement.
”
”
Joe Feldman (Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms)
“
Picture this broad: 22 going on 18. Half the guys in my class would have given their left testicle to date her. This cupcake is the guidance counselor the principal has assigned me. Miss Boyle is her name. We all call her “Miss Bubbly Water.” Imagine the teasing I have to endure from my friends. Not to mention what it’s like, sitting across from this Barbie Doll every Thursday afternoon, watching her cross and uncross her legs, while she’s lecturing me about—get this: “staying focused.” Right! My pants are on fire, and she’s handing me a crash course in Psych 101!
”
”
Ted Gargiulo (The Man Who Invented New Jersey: Collected Stories)
“
You know how some people think cool equals bored, and they act like they’re alien scientists who drew the short straw and ended up assigned to observe this lowly species, humans, and they just lean against walls all the time, sighing and waiting to be called home to Zigborp-12, where all the fascinating geniuses are?
Yeah, well, Mik doesn’t sigh or lean, and his eyes are fully open like something awesome might happen at any time and he doesn’t want to miss it. If he’s an alien, he’s an alien from a gray planet without pizza or music, and he freaking loves it here.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Night of Cake & Puppets (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1.5))
“
VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS ASSAULT ON ANOTHER PRODIGY According to numerous reports, Ro stomped on Shayda Adel’s foot to punish Shayda for attempting to trip her. 10 out of 10 Apology required. Technically, Mr. Sencen wasn’t involved in this incident. But since his bodyguard was, it’s going in his file. And for the record, I completely understand Ro’s behavior. But I can’t condone harming another prodigy. I’ve ordered Ro to apologize during orientation. —Magnate Leto LEVEL SIX VIOLATION SERIOUSNESS SENTENCE PRINCIPAL’S COMMENTS Update: In an effort to contain the story of the Neverseen’s recent brutal attack on Mr. Vacker and Miss Foster, I’ve asked Mr. Sencen to spread the rumor that Miss Foster and Mr. Vacker are away on a mysterious assignment. Elwin also reports having to repeatedly chase Mr. Sencen away from the Healing Center. —Magnate Leto Second Update: At Ms. Ruewen’s request, I’ve given Mr. Sencen permission to visit Miss Foster in the Healing Center. (Apparently Miss Foster’s morale needs a boost.) Keefe may have untraditional methods, but he does ease Miss Foster’s worries and generally improves her mood. —Magnate Leto
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Unlocked (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8.5))
“
So . . . for some reason we thought you were the guys assigned to Ms. Lynde’s surveillance. Guess we were mistaken?”
“Nope, you got it right,” Kamin said. “We do the night shift. Nice girl. We talk a lot on the way to the gym.”
“Oh. Then I guess Agent Wilkins and I are just curious why you two are here instead of with her.”
Kamin waved this off. “It’s cool. We did a switcheroo with another cop, see?”
“A switcheroo . . . right. Remind me again how that works?” Jack asked.
“It’s because she’s got this big date tonight,” Kamin explained.
Jack cocked his head. “A date?”
Phelps chimed in. “Yeah, you know—with Max-the-investment-banker-she-met-on-the-Bloomingdales-escalator.”
“I must’ve missed that one.”
“Oh, it’s a great story,” Kamin assured him. “She crashed into him coming off the escalator and when her shopping bag spilled open, he told her he liked her shoes.”
“Ah . . . the Meet Cute,” Wilkins said with a grin.
Jack threw him a sharp look. “What did you just say?”
“You know, the Meet Cute.” Wilkins explained. “In romantic comedies, that’s what they call the moment when the man and woman first meet.” He rubbed his chin, thinking this over. “I don’t know, Jack . . . if she’s had her Meet Cute with another man that does not bode well for you.”
Jack nearly did a double take as he tried to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean.
Phelps shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t go that far. She’s still on the fence about this guy. He’s got problems keeping his job from intruding on his personal life. But she’s feeling a lot of pressure with Amy’s wedding—she’s only got about ten days left to get a date.”
“She’s the maid of honor, see?” Kamin said.
Jack stared at all three of them. Their lips were moving and sound was coming out, but it was like they were speaking a different language.
Kamin turned to Phelps. “Frankly, I think she should just go with Collin, since he and Richard broke up.”
“Yeah, but you heard what she said. She and Collin need to stop using each other as a crutch. It’s starting to interfere with their other relationships.”
Unbelievable. Jack ran a hand through his hair, tempted to tear it out. But then he’d have a bald spot to thank Cameron Lynde for, and that would piss him off even more. “Can we get back to the switcheroo part?”
“Right, sorry. It was Slonsky’s suggestion.
”
”
Julie James (Something About You (FBI/US Attorney, #1))
“
He twirled her around a few more times before he said offhandedly, "Aren't you tired of fighting yet? I'm beginning to find it quite tedious m'self. I've even given you the benefit of the doubt-"
"Don't do me any favor."
He cocked his head to the side because she'd turned away to mumble that. "Are you challenging me to make you sweet and lovable again? I believe you are!"
Her eyes flew back to his, but she could't do anything more than sputter over the absurdity. His pale eyes were twinkling, holding back laughter no doubt. What the devil as he doing! Je couldn't be serious.Yet he rubbed his cheek against hers right there on the dance floor!
"What-"
She should never have turned in toward that unexpected caress. Was she destined to bump lips with him by accident? She drew back instantly while she had the presence of mine to do so. But he didn't.In fact, he moved closer, his mouth actually persuing hers until there was nothing accidental about it! She stumbled as her sensed whirled. That just encouraged him to hold her closer and kiss her more deeply. She was fast approaching the point of not caring!
Desperately, she tore her mouth away to gasp out, "You're going to cause a scandal!"
"I do believe it would be worth it," he said softly by her ear. "But it's only a minor infraction and quite overlooked, since everyone here knows we're married."
"No,they don't.I didn't have it announced."
He stopped abruptly. Several other couples even bumped into them. "Why not?"
She looked away from his frown, which make her feel distinctly uneasy. How to explain her earlier hesitancy without him seeing it for what it was, a full-blown panic? But he didn't wait for her answer.
Suddenly he was leading her off the dance floor. He began a social circuit around the room, missing no one who wasn't currently dancing. From group to group he stopped to introduce Rebecca as his wife,the Marchioness of Rochwood. He did it curtly,as if here completing a task assigned to him, which gave her the odd feeling he was punishing her.She was mortified. Most of those people thought he was joking! They knew him.They knew his reputation. And he wasn't behaving the least bit normally.
”
”
Johanna Lindsey (A Rogue of My Own (Reid Family, #3))
“
Rich Purnell sipped coffee in the silent building. Only his cubicle illuminated the otherwise dark room. Continuing with his computations, he ran a final test on the software he'd written. It passed.
With a relieved sigh, he sank back in his chair. Checking the clock on his computer, he shook his head. 3:42am.
Being an astrodynamicist, Rich rarely had to work late. His job was the find the exact orbits and course corrections needed for any given mission. Usually, it was one of the first parts of a project; all the other steps being based on the orbit.
But this time, things were reversed. Iris needed an orbital path, and nobody knew when it would launch. A non-Hoffman Mars-transfer isn't challenging, but it does require the exact locations of Earth and Mars.
Planets move as time goes by. An orbit calculated for a specific launch date will work only for that date. Even a single day's difference would result in missing Mars entirely.
So Rich had to calculate many orbits. He had a range of 25 days during which Iris might launch. He calculated one orbital path for each.
He began an email to his boss.
"Mike", he typed, "Attached are the orbital paths for Iris, in 1-day increments. We should start peer-review and vetting so they can be officially accepted. And you were right, I was here almost all night.
It wasn't that bad. Nowhere near the pain of calculating orbits for Hermes. I know you get bored when I go in to the math, so I'll summarize: The small, constant thrust of Hermes's ion drives is much harder to deal with than the large point-thrusts of presupply probes.
All 25 of the orbits take 349 days, and vary only slightly in thrust duration and angle. The fuel requirement is nearly identical for the orbits and is well within the capacity of EagleEye's booster.
It's too bad. Earth and Mars are really badly positioned. Heck, it's almost easier to-"
He stopped typing.
Furrowing his brow, he stared in to the distance.
"Hmm." he said.
Grabbing his coffee cup, he went to the break room for a refill.
...
"Rich", said Mike.
Rich Purnell concentrated on his computer screen. His cubicle was a landfill of printouts, charts, and reference books. Empty coffee cups rested on every surface; take-out packaging littered the ground.
"Rich", Mike said, more forcefully.
Rich looked up. "Yeah?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Just a little side project. Something I wanted to check up on."
"Well... that's fine, I guess", Mike said, "but you need to do your assigned work first. I asked for those satellite adjustments two weeks ago and you still haven't done them."
"I need some supercomputer time." Rich said.
"You need supercomputer time to calculate routine satellite adjustments?"
"No, it's for this other thing I'm working on", Rich said.
"Rich, seriously. You have to do your job."
Rich thought for a moment. "Would now be a good time for a vacation?" He asked.
Mike sighed. "You know what, Rich? I think now would be an ideal time for you to take a vacation."
"Great!" Rich smiled. "I'll start right now."
"Sure", Mike said. "Go on home. Get some rest."
"Oh, I'm not going home", said Rich, returning to his calculations.
Mike rubbed his eyes. "Ok, whatever. About those satellite orbits...?"
"I'm on vacation", Rich said without looking up.
Mike shrugged and walked away.
”
”
Andy Weir
“
Has he called you at all?” Violet asked, even though she already knew the answer. Chelsea would have exploded with joy if he had.
“No,” Chelsea answered glumly, and then she snapped her gum, earning herself another scowl from the librarian. She ignored the scolding look. “And I don’t get it. I’ve given him my best material, including the I’m-easy-and-you-can-totally-have-me bedroom eyes. What’s he waiting for?” Chelsea stopped talking and dropped her face into her open history book. “Look out, crazy librarian at nine o’clock.”
By the time Mrs. Hertzog reached them, Chelsea was pretending to be interested in her assignment, filling in the dates on her paper as if it were the most fascinating homework in the world. Although Violet was almost certain that the War of 1812 hadn’t occurred in 1776.
“Miss Morrison, do I need to remind you that you’re supposed to be working? Your teacher sent you down here to study, not to socialize.” She smiled sweetly at Violet. Chelsea’s gaze narrowed as she glared, first at Violet and then at Mrs. Hertzog. But, wisely, she kept her mouth shut. “If you need help finding reference material,” Mrs. Hertzog offered, glancing over the answers on Chelsea’s paper, “I’d be happy to point you in the right direction…”
Chelsea swallowed, and Violet suspected she’d just swallowed her gum, since gum was a library no-no, before answering. “No, thanks. I think I’ve got it covered.” She smiled, trying for sweet but getting closer to sour. “Unless you have any information on the Russo family?”
“What Russo family?” the librarian challenged, as if it were highly unlikely that Chelsea was really interested in “research.”
She was, just not the kind of research she could do at the library.
”
”
Kimberly Derting (Desires of the Dead (The Body Finder, #2))
“
It takes some getting used to,' Mr. Forkle said. 'But what you're seeing is a visual representation of each other's moods.'
'So that means if I do this...' Keefe tickled Sophie's neck.
'GAH--everything just went supersonic!' Fitz said.
Sophie snatched Keefe's wrist as he reached to tickle her again. 'Don't. You. Dare.'
'Whoa, now everything's red and ripply,' Fitz said. 'Is that because she's angry?'
'Precisely, Mr. Vacker. Every time her emotions shift, the patterns and colors will change. And with practice, you'll learn to interpret what you see.'
'Okay, but...can't they just say, "Hey, I'm feeling this?"' Keefe asked.
'People aren't always honest about their feelings--even with themselves,' Mr. Forkle told him. 'Plus, many telepathic missions involve stealth and secrecy. So for this exercise I'm going to need both of you to forget everything around you. Let the world drop away, leaving only you two.'
Keefe sighed. 'Just tell them to stare into each other's eyes and they'll be good.'
'None of that, Mr. Sencen. From this moment on, you have one job and one job only: to judge their translations of the various emotions I'll be triggering.'
'Triggering how?' Sophie asked.
'You'll see soon enough. And you'll go first, Miss Foster. For this to work, Mr. Vacker, it's crucial that you not react externally. No yelling or thrashing or screaming or--'
'Uhhh, what are you going to do to me?' Fitz asked.
'Nothing you won't survive. Consider it an exercise in self-control. And try not to listen to his thoughts, Miss Foster. Study only the changes in his emotional center and make your deduction. We begin now.'
Sophie closed her eyes and focus on the colors weaving around Fitz's mind. She was about to ask if she was missing something when the pattern exploded into a swirl of pale blue tendrils. The color felt to bright to be sad, but also too wild to be peaceful.
'Tension?' she guessed.
'Kinda close,' Keefe told her.
The laughter in his voice made her wonder what had happened to poor Fitz.
She tried to think of other emotions as his mind turned electric blue.
'Shock?' she guessed.
'That counts,' Keefe said. 'Though the best answer would've been "surprise."'
'Is that an emotion?' she asked.
'Indeed it is,' Mr. Forkle said. 'One of the most common emotions you'll experience as you navigate someone's mind--hence why I chose it as our starting point.'
'Can I talk now?' Fitz asked. 'Because that was seriously disgusting!'
Sophie opened her eyes and tried not to laugh when she saw red fruit smashed all over Fitz's face. He wiped his cheeks on his sleeves, but that only smeared the pulp.
'I think I'm going to like this assignment,' Keefe said. 'What else can we fling at Fitz?'
'Nothing for the moment,' Mr. Forkle told him. 'It's his turn to interpret. Everyone close your eyes. And remember, no cues of any kind, Miss Foster.'
Sophie counted the seconds, bracing for the worst--and when nothing chaned, she opened her eyes and found Mr. Forkle with his finger over his lips in a 'shhh' sign.
'Um...confusion,' Fitz guessed.
'That works,' Keefe said. 'It started as anticipation, but then it shifted.'
'Very good,' Mr. Forkle said. 'And well done, Mr. Sencen. I wasn't sure you'd recognize confusion. It's one of the more challenging emotions for Empaths.'
'Maybe on other people,' Keefe said. 'But on Foster it's easy. Why are her emotions so much stronger?'
'Honestly, I'm not sure,' Mr. Forkle admitted. 'I suspect it stems from the combination of her inflicting ability and her human upbringing. But it was one of the surprises of her development. Much like her teleporting. Okay, Miss Foster, it's your turn to guess again.'
She closed her eyes and watched as the lines of color in Fitz's mind blossomed to a snowflake of purple.
'Pride?' she guessed.
Keefe laughed. 'Wow, add more fail points to Sophitz.'
'Quiet,' Mr. Forkle told him.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Neverseen (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #4))
“
My parents must have seen something in me that I missed. My teachers insisted that I didn’t apply myself… I know that I didn’t like doing the additional homework my parents gave me, so instead of being a scholar I became the class clown. Ouch! My grades, although passing, didn’t come near reflecting my potential. It was suggested that I was a bright child who just didn’t apply himself. Most of the time I received only “C” grades, although they should have been at least “B+” and perhaps by showing just a bit more effort I could have been an “A” student or better. Lazy, was the term they used, and for this reason they gave me lower grades. But nothing fazed me as long as I passed and was promoted with my class. Punishing me also didn’t work, and boxing my ears only made me more rebellious. It must have seemed futile to my parents, but they continued doing what they thought was right. Being defiant, I insisted that if they didn’t give me so much additional work, I would have more time for what was assigned. However, that was not to be.
”
”
Hank Bracker
“
I loved my mother so much during that time; if I’d had the language I would have called her the love of my life and no uttered words in all of time could have been more true. We must have spent nearly every minute of our lives together—I don’t remember any babysitters—and in the hours we were apart, when she had to teach or attend a meeting, I missed her so much I felt as if an arm or a leg had been taken away—no, more, a heart or brain, some part of me that was undoubtedly the best of what I had to offer. But the separations were delicious in their own way, because they made our reunions all the more sweet. Upon my mother’s return I was showered in praise and love. I was so good and brave, not crying or getting myself in trouble, successfully completing whatever game or task she’d assigned before leaving me alone. My mother picked me up and kissed my head and let me wrap my arms around her long neck. She called me guai. At night we went to sleep on the same twin mattress, her arm flung casually over my shoulder, my hand clutching a strand of her hair.
”
”
Meng Jin (Little Gods)
“
The California Board of Education provides, through its virtual libraries, a book intended for kindergarten teachers to read to their students: Who Are You? The Kid’s Guide to Gender Identity by Brook Pessin-Whedbee.19 The author begins with a familiar origin story: “Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies. This is the sex assigned to you at birth, male or female.”20 This author runs the gamut of typical kindergarten gender identity instruction. Who Are You? offers kids a smorgasbord of gender options. (“These are just a few words people use: trans, genderqueer, non-binary, gender fluid, transgender, gender neutral, agender, neutrois, bigender, third gender, two-spirit….”) The way baby boomers once learned to rattle off state capitals, elementary school kids are now taught today’s gender taxonomy often enough to have committed it to memory. And while gender ideologues insist they are merely presenting an objective ontology, it is hard to miss that they seem to hope kids will pick a fun, “gender-creative”21 option for themselves.
”
”
Abigail Shrier (Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters)
“
Even worse, traditional grading that penalizes students for mistakes often isn’t just limited to a student’s academic work. Teachers often assign grades based on mistakes in students’ behaviors as well: downgrading a score if an assignment is late, subtracting points from a daily participation grade if a student is tardy to class, or lowering a group’s grade if the group becomes too noisy while they work. In this environment, every mistake is penalized and incorporated into the final grade. Even if just a few points are docked for forgetting to bring a notebook to class or losing a few points for not heading a paper correctly, the message is clear: All mistakes result in penalties. While some might argue that this is simply accountability—“I asked the students to do something, so it has to count”—it’s missing the forest for the trees. The more assignments and behaviors a teacher grades, the less willing a student will be to reveal her weaknesses and vulnerability. With no zones of learning that are “grade free,” it becomes nearly impossible to build an effective teacher–student relationship and positive learning environment in which students try new things, venture into unfamiliar learning territory, or feel comfortable making errors, and grow. When everything a student does is graded, and every mistake counts against her grade, that student can perceive that to receive a good grade she has to be perfect all of the time. Students don’t feel trust in their teachers, only the pressure to conceal weaknesses and avoid errors.
”
”
Joe Feldman (Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms)
“
Society makes a peculiar offer to its citizenry: we have a job, if you want it. Here it is.
You must stand between the predators and the innocents of the world and hold the line with your blood.
Pay is modest—and rendered grudgingly.
You will labor across hours, long and ungodly, that will test the limits of exhaustion and tedium.
Family will suffer your absence. You will miss many meaningful moments.
You will find yourself shipped to places far away, forbidding, forgotten or assigned to patrol streets savaged by violence, poverty, madness. Your presence will not be welcomed.
You will see tragedy, hopelessness and evil at depths that will rend your soul. You will be expected somehow, some way, to keep yourself whole as you drown in these so that you may confront them again the next day.
You will be called filthy names. In the course of your duties, you will be attacked, targeted, challenged. Some will try to kill you. They may succeed.
The antipathy of the press and the animosity of the public will flank you without end until your final tour of duty. Your every action, every decision, every remark will be the subject of unremitting—and unforgiving—scrutiny.
Politicians will exploit you—for good and ill—and sacrifice you to expediency once the exploitation is done.
Your mistakes, though honest, will never be forgiven—ever.
You will save many but the one you lose will haunt you until your dying day.
You will form bonds of brotherhood with your comrades, wordless in their abiding depth, forged in the rough bravery that circumstance compels. You will bury many of those brothers.
You will begin each day knowing that you may never see another.
This is the job that society offers its citizenry. Do you want it?
For most, the answer is an obvious one: no. But for a few, the answer is just as obvious: yes.
This is for the few who answer yes.
”
”
Daniel Modell
“
Although thrilled that the era of the personal computer had arrived, he was afraid that he was going to miss the party. Slapping down seventy-five cents, he grabbed the issue and trotted through the slushy snow to the Harvard dorm room of Bill Gates, his high school buddy and fellow computer fanatic from Seattle, who had convinced him to drop out of college and move to Cambridge. “Hey, this thing is happening without us,” Allen declared. Gates began to rock back and forth, as he often did during moments of intensity. When he finished the article, he realized that Allen was right. For the next eight weeks, the two of them embarked on a frenzy of code writing that would change the nature of the computer business.1 Unlike the computer pioneers before him, Gates, who was born in 1955, had not grown up caring much about the hardware. He had never gotten his thrills by building Heathkit radios or soldering circuit boards. A high school physics teacher, annoyed by the arrogance Gates sometimes displayed while jockeying at the school’s timesharing terminal, had once assigned him the project of assembling a Radio Shack electronics kit. When Gates finally turned it in, the teacher recalled, “solder was dripping all over the back” and it didn’t work.2 For Gates, the magic of computers was not in their hardware circuits but in their software code. “We’re not hardware gurus, Paul,” he repeatedly pronounced whenever Allen proposed building a machine. “What we know is software.” Even his slightly older friend Allen, who had built shortwave radios, knew that the future belonged to the coders. “Hardware,” he admitted, “was not our area of expertise.”3 What Gates and Allen set out to do on that December day in 1974 when they first saw the Popular Electronics cover was to create the software for personal computers. More than that, they wanted to shift the balance in the emerging industry so that the hardware would become an interchangeable commodity, while those who created the operating system and application software would capture most of the profits.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution)
“
This is a good moment to remember one of Mansfield’s Manly Maxims: “Manly men tend their fields.” It means that we take care of the lives and property entrusted to us. It means that we take responsibility for everything in the “field assigned to us.” We cannot do this without knowledge. We cannot do it if we are ignorant of our times, blind to the trends shaping our lives, and oblivious to the basic knowledge that allows us to do what we are called to do as men. We must know enough about law, health, science, economics, politics, and technology to fulfill our roles. We should also know enough about our faith to stand our ground in a secular age, resist heresies, and teach our families. We also shouldn’t be without the benefits of literature and poetry, of good novels and stirring stories, all of which make us more relevant and more effective. We need all of this, and no one is going to force it upon us. Nor will we acquire what we need from a degree program or a study group alone, as valuable as these can be. The truth is that men who aspire to be genuine men and serve well have no choice: they must devote themselves to an aggressive program of self-education. They have to read books, stay current with websites and periodicals, consult experts, and put themselves in a position to know. It isn’t as hard as it sounds, particularly in our Internet age. Much of what a man needs to know can land in his iPad while he is sleeping, but he has to know enough to value this power in the first place. To ignore this duty can mean disaster. How many men have lost jobs because they did not see massive trends on the horizon? How many men have failed to stay intellectually sharp and so gave up ground in their professions to others with more active minds? How many have lost money through uninformed investments or have not taken opportunities in expanding fields or have missed promotions because they had not bothered to learn about new technologies or what changes social media, for example, would bring to their jobs? I do not want to be negative. Learning is a joy. Reading is one of the great pleasures of life. A man ought to invest in knowledge because it is part of living in this world fully engaged and glorifying God. Yet our times also make it essential. The amount of knowledge in the world is increasing. Technology is transforming our lives. New trends can rise like floodwaters and sweep devastation into our homes. Men committed to tending their fields learn, study, research, dig out facts, and test theories. They know how to safeguard their families. They serve well because they serve as informed men.
”
”
Stephen Mansfield (Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self)
“
On quitting Bretton, which I did a few weeks after Paulina’s departure—little thinking then I was never again to visit it; never more to tread its calm old streets—I betook myself home, having been absent six months. It will be conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that fashion; why not I with the rest? Picture me then idle, basking, plump, and happy, stretched on a cushioned deck, warmed with constant sunshine, rocked by breezes indolently soft. However, it cannot be concealed that, in that case, I must somehow have fallen overboard, or that there must have been wreck at last. I too well remember a time—a long time—of cold, of danger, of contention. To this hour, when I have the nightmare, it repeats the rush and saltness of briny waves in my throat, and their icy pressure on my lungs. I even know there was a storm, and that not of one hour nor one day. For many days and nights neither sun nor stars appeared; we cast with our own hands the tackling out of the ship; a heavy tempest lay on us; all hope that we should be saved was taken away. In fine, the ship was lost, the crew perished. As far as I recollect, I complained to no one about these troubles. Indeed, to whom could I complain? Of Mrs. Bretton I had long lost sight. Impediments, raised by others, had, years ago, come in the way of our intercourse, and cut it off. Besides, time had brought changes for her, too: the handsome property of which she was left guardian for her son, and which had been chiefly invested in some joint-stock undertaking, had melted, it was said, to a fraction of its original amount. Graham, I learned from incidental rumours, had adopted a profession; both he and his mother were gone from Bretton, and were understood to be now in London. Thus, there remained no possibility of dependence on others; to myself alone could I look. I know not that I was of a self-reliant or active nature; but self-reliance and exertion were forced upon me by circumstances, as they are upon thousands besides; and when Miss Marchmont, a maiden lady of our neighbourhood, sent for me, I obeyed her behest, in the hope that she might assign me some task I could undertake.
”
”
Charlotte Brontë (Villette)
“
Etienne’s going to find out stuff about voodoo. Oh, and Roo and I are going to research that little boy who died at the feed store. And Miranda gets Magnolia Gallery--but of course we’ll all help her with that. And…and I guess that’s about it.”
“Damn.” Parker did his best to sound disappointed. “I was hoping for a whole lot more.”
Nodding sympathetically, Roo swept him with solemn eyes. “How sad. That’s exactly what Ashley always says about you.”
“Oh, except for this other idea I had.” Ashley glanced hopefully around the group. “Instead of calling it Ghost Walk, why don’t we call it something else?”
“Great idea.” Parker was adamant. “Why don’t we call it off?”
“How about”--Ashley paused dramatically, her eyes sparkling--“Walk of the Spirits?”
As everyone traded glances, Gage repeated it several times out loud. “Yeah. I like it.”
“Me, too,” Miranda spoke up. “I think it’s good.”
“I think it’s romantic,” Ashley sighed. “Walk of the Spirits…don’t you think it’s wonderfully romantic?”
“I think it’s wonderfully…you.” Etienne patted Ashley’s shoulder. “But could we move a little faster here? I got me a lotta work to do this evening.”
“That’s okay, this is just our first outline. We still have to refine it. And we still have a lot more research to do.”
Gage nodded. “Then we have to write up a script for the tour. And everything has to be timed. And--”
“Enough torture.” Parker glowered at each of them. “I get the idea.”
“But hey, y’all.” Ashley fairly glowed with pride. “The important thing is that Miss Dupree loves our project even more now. Did you see the look on her face when she was reading our outline? I’ve never seen her that excited about any assignment before, have you?”
“I’ve never seen her excited about anything.” Parker exchanged guy looks with Etienne. “She needs to get laid.”
“You know, at some point, we really need to do a trial run of this thing,” Gage advised, ignoring Parker. “Seeing it in daylight is totally different than seeing it at night. If we’re gonna get the full effect, we need to walk it after dark.
”
”
Richie Tankersley Cusick (Walk of the Spirits (Walk, #1))
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skeletal. “It would hardly be unprecedented, don’t you think? “So here’s your new assignment: you will establish a new agency, recruit agents, and direct them—I have a little list of those who won’t be missed, tum-de-dum, I shall send it to you presently—in order to develop and deliver a HUMINT capability directed against the United States. You are to bring the new organization to operational readiness, then lead them in penetrating the continental land mass, peering behind the blackout curtain that has so abruptly descended,
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”
Charles Stross (The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9))
“
She never realized how much she missed being around her team until they weren’t there. She’d missed them all while she and Baldwin were away, and returned to the news that Lincoln Ross had been tapped for an assignment. A “Special Assignment.” That’s all she’d been told. She could guess what cases might be important enough to put a homicide detective on a full-time assignment, had made a few attempts to get information from her captain, Mitchell Price. He’d only smiled and nodded with each guess, not giving her the satisfaction of knowing which supposition was correct. Setting
”
”
J.T. Ellison (Judas Kiss (Taylor Jackson #3))
“
had not slept. Her gaze was somewhere else. Three half-smoked cigarettes lay in the ashtray on her nightstand. A pile of briefs was strewn across his side of the bed. He could tell she was angry, and she had dealt with it the way she always did—throwing herself into her work. Michael undressed silently. “What time is it?” she asked, without looking at him. “Late.” “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be so late tonight?” “There were developments in the case. I thought you’d be asleep.” “I don’t care if you wake me up, Michael. I needed to hear your voice.” “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. The place was crashing. I couldn’t get away.” “Why didn’t you come to the appointment?” Michael was unbuttoning his shirt. He stopped and turned to look at her. Her face was red, her eyes damp. “Elizabeth, I’m the officer assigned to the terrorist group that may have shot down that jetliner. I can’t walk out in the middle of the day and come to Washington for a doctor’s appointment.” “Why not?” “Because I can’t, that’s why. The President of the United States is making decisions based on what we tell him, and in a situation like this it’s impossible for me to leave the office, even for a couple of hours.” “Michael, I have a job too. It may not be as important as working for the CIA, but it is damned important to me. I’m juggling three cases right now, I’ve got Braxton breathing down my neck, and I’m trying desperately to have a—” Her composure cracked, just for an instant. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I wanted to come, but I couldn’t. Not on a day like today. I felt horrible about missing the appointment. What did the doctor say?” She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Michael crossed the room, sat down beside her on
”
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Daniel Silva (The Mark Of The Assassin (Michael Osbourne, #1))
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It also makes clear why an observational study needs to collect lots of ancillary information about each participant so that the kind of balancing required can be attempted. In a true experiment, with random assignment, such information is (in theory) not required. Here enters Paul Holland, whose observations about the inevitability of missing data will further illuminate our journey.
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Howard Wainer (Truth or Truthiness: Distinguishing Fact from Fiction by Learning to Think Like a Data Scientist)
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Are Class Captains and School Prefects managers or leaders? Schools miss it when they assign a student to discipline other students. Class captains and school prefects are leaders not managers. A Leader is on A MISSION not on A DUTY. And being a leader goes beyond expecting compliance from others, which is what managers do. If your school assigns prefect to enforce compliance in any way you are doing it all wrong. For one, seeking compliance from anyone is complicated and it comes with a position that "demands" respect and thus you are putting such children at a risk of being hated by their peers. Prefect should be examples not authority figures, plus they should be trained to act like leaders should, if you also don't train them, you are doing it too wrong. Here are some of those "things" you should train your prefect: 1. Active listening 2. How to help their peers and other students find meaning in learning 3. How to make others students wellbeing and safety their priority. 4. How to inspire others and lead by example. Charity begins from school too. Your prefects can learn people skills that can guarantee their future right from your school. Your prefects should be assets to your school because of what they can learn to do now to become better in future not because of what they can do for your school now, which obviously is very little.
”
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Asuni LadyZeal
“
Mr. Zelenskyy thinks he was assigned a movie project, titled "Foolish Brave President ". Shooting has started but it has no pack-up date, devastated cities, villages are the artificial movie setup, producer's money, so he doesn't care. There are no refugees also. 3 million citizens who fled are actually junior artists.
millions of junior artists. There are working in this movie, 3 million have already returned home after playing their role. Shooting is also going live on telecast. He's glad to feel happy as the world media appreciates his acting, so throughout he's enjoying playing this role. And he's damn sure he will be entitled to each and every award.
His character has deep emotions, touching drama, great actions, but the very important thing is completely missing, which is the main character of the leader. Diplomacy and citizens' safety policy !!!
”
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Mohammed Zaki Ansari ("Zaki's Gift Of Love")
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Who are we, the people who have ADHD? We are the problem kid who drives his parents crazy by being totally disorganized, unable to follow through on anything, incapable of cleaning up a room, or washing dishes, or performing just about any assigned task; the one who is forever interrupting, making excuses for work not done, and generally functioning far below potential in most areas. We are the kid who gets daily lectures on how we’re squandering our talent, wasting the golden opportunity that our innate ability gives us to do well, and failing to make good use of all that our parents have provided. We are also sometimes the talented executive who keeps falling short due to missed deadlines, forgotten obligations, social faux pas, and blown opportunities. Too often we are the addicts, the misfits, the unemployed, and the criminals who are just one diagnosis and treatment plan away from turning it all around. We are the people Marlon Brando spoke for in the classic 1954 film On the Waterfront when he said, “I coulda been a contender.” So many of us coulda been contenders, and shoulda been for sure. But then, we can also make good. Can we ever! We are the seemingly tuned-out meeting participant who comes out of nowhere to provide the fresh idea that saves the day. Frequently, we are the “underachieving” child whose talent blooms with the right kind of help and finds incredible success after a checkered educational record. We are the contenders and the winners. We are also imaginative and dynamic teachers, preachers, circus clowns, and stand-up comics, Navy SEALs or Army Rangers, inventors, tinkerers, and trend setters. Among us there are self-made millionaires and billionaires; Pulitzer and Nobel prize winners; Academy, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy award winners; topflight trial attorneys, brain surgeons, traders on the commodities exchange, and investment bankers. And we are often entrepreneurs. We are entrepreneurs ourselves, and the great majority of the adult patients we see for ADHD are or aspire to be entrepreneurs too. The owner and operator of an entrepreneurial support company called Strategic Coach, a man named Dan Sullivan (who also has ADHD!), estimates that at least 50 percent of his clients have ADHD as well.
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Edward M. Hallowell (ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood)
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running late, missing assignments, and you’re sloppy.
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Rebecca Ross (Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1))
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The thirty-day no-contact rule Recovering from a breakup on a more practical basis can be likened to getting over an addiction. You go through periods of major withdrawal where you become overwhelmed by a cocktail of emotions, including guilt, fear, randomly missing him, and suddenly feeling like what he did to you ‘wasn’t that bad’. You start to play the mental showreel of all your good times (even if you only had a few), and suddenly you can’t remember why you left. Feeling this cluster of imbalanced emotions can be very confusing and irritating, but all hope is not lost. Contrary to popular belief, breakups don’t actually have to be hard. We assign so much spiritual and emotional value to these men, that by the time we finally distance ourselves from them, we feel distant from ourselves. And that’s really heartbreaking, because no man is worth losing yourself over. Ever. They say it takes about thirty days to break a habit. Texting your ex, stalking his profile from your second account, deliberately asking your mutual friends certain questions to get updates on his life and his new girl – it all needs to stop. So right now, go cold turkey, block his number on whatever messaging app you use, remove him from all your social media. Maintaining little corridors of access to him means he’s still on a pedestal. It also means your value system when it comes to men is warped, because naturally you’re going to keep comparing new guys to him as long as he holds this much space in your head. You want to evict him from that space so that someone new can blow you away when the time is right! This guy is not the be-all and end-all of your experiences with men, and the outcome of your situation with him really doesn’t have to define your future relationships. This thirty-day period of making yourself the centre of your world has a 100 per cent success rate, because by the time you get to day thirty, if it’s done honestly and correctly, you will have either a) met a new guy or b) found a whole heap of new reasons to love your healing self. But the thirty-day no-contact rule must be adhered to strictly, and if you break the pact with yourself, you must start all the way from the beginning – which might feel like torture.
”
”
Chidera Eggerue (How To Get Over A Boy)
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DBT posits that borderline patients possess a genetic/biological vulnerability to emotional overreactivity. This view hypothesizes that the limbic system, the part of the brain most closely associated with emotional responses, is hyperactive in BPD. The second contributing factor, according to DBT practitioners, is an invalidating environment: that is, others dismiss, contradict, or reject the developing individual’s emotions. Confronted with such interactions, the individual is unable to trust others or her own reactions. Emotions are uncontrolled and volatile. To calm these erratic emotions, DBT emphasizes mindfulness, the process of paying attention to what is happening at the moment, without extreme emotional reactivity, judgment, or invalidation. In the initial stages of treatment, DBT focuses on a hierarchical system of targets, confronting first the most serious and then later the easier behaviors to change. The highest priority addressed immediately is the threat of suicide and self-injuring behaviors. The second-highest target is to eliminate behaviors that interfere with therapy, such as missed appointments or not completing homework assignments. The third priority is to address behaviors that interfere with a healthy quality of life, such as disruptive compulsions, promiscuity, or criminal conduct; among these, easier changes are targeted first. The fourth priority is to focus on increasing behavioral skills.
”
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Jerold J. Kreisman (I Hate You--Don't Leave Me: Third Edition: Understanding the Borderline Personality)
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He’s placed us wherever we are because we are in the midst of a battle, a war. You and I are in the midst of a seismic conflict involving good versus evil. To miss a kingdom assignment because we’ve become too caught up in our personal kingdom is one of the greatest tragedies we could ever face.
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Victoria Duerstock (Extraordinary Hospitality for Ordinary Christians: A Radical Approach to Preparing Your Heart & Home for Gospel-Centered Community)
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You and I are in the midst of a seismic conflict involving good versus evil. To miss a kingdom assignment because we’ve become too caught up in our personal kingdom is one of the greatest tragedies we could ever face.
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Victoria Duerstock (Extraordinary Hospitality for Ordinary Christians: A Radical Approach to Preparing Your Heart & Home for Gospel-Centered Community)
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When I get home, I ask my mother if we can move to a new town. My mother says there's a librarian in every town.
I ask if she wants to do my assignment for me.
'I've already been in the first grade,' says my mother.
”
”
Barbara Bottner (Miss Brooks Loves Books! (And I Don't))
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Six months later, though I still loathed the man, I changed my approach to the task list. I got up after the first wake-up call without delay. There would be no more early-morning baptisms for me. Instead, I focused on the details Sgt. Jack always noticed and finished each job right the first time. That was the only way I’d get any free time to play basketball. However, my new approach produced an unexpected side effect as well: a sense of pride in a job well done. In fact, that sense of pride came to mean more to me than basketball time. When I washed his car collection, a weekly assignment, I knew every drop of water had to be wiped away with a chamois before the first coat of wax. I used SOS pads to get the white walls gleaming and buffed the hell out of every panel. I also used Armor All on the dashboards and all the vinyl insides. I buffed the leather seats too. It bothered me if I saw streaks on the glass or chrome. I was annoyed if I missed a soiled spot or cut a corner here or there on any chore. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was a sign that I was actually healing. When a half-assed job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to half-ass your life. I knew I had every reason in the world to rebel and remain a lazy motherfucker. I also sensed that would only make me more miserable, so I adapted. But no matter how well I did or how fast I completed a given task, there were no atta’ boys or weekly allowance. No ice cream cones or surprise gifts, hugs, or high fives. In Sgt. Jack’s mind, I was finally doing what I should have been doing all along.
”
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David Goggins (Never Finished)
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not be able to rationalize skipping the dinner by telling themselves “nobody will miss me.” Instead, they will feel a sense of responsibility to provide their essential ingredient for the event’s success. Keep this in mind when selling ideas: assign people specific, unique, and important roles in implementation. Inspire them to feel accountable for the entire effort by making them responsible
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G. Richard Shell (The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas)
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*Assignment a link to writeforme.org*
M: You have until 9 p.m. to get this done...
*once account made*... it took me to the link I'd clicked.
It said, "Title," at the very top, and under that, it said, "You will type the line: I will always call miss m by her title." Under that it said, "30 time correctly."
I immediately texted her. *you can't be serious*
"I'm serious. Have fun!"...
I began to type, "I will always call miss m by her tilte."
When I tried to backspace to fix the typo, I wasn't able to, and then I noticed that line didn't count as a line done, but made the count 32 lines instead of 30. If I made a mistake, it started over and added 2 lines each time. I glanced at the clock. It was six-fifteen: I had until nine to get this to her.
Fuck my life, it was going to take the entire time allotted, and I was probably going to be late considering how every fucking time I typed, I fucked u.
My lines were now at 44.
”
”
M C Stokes
“
I’ve found that the most challenging assignments I’ve experienced have taught me the most—often lessons in patience and empathy that I might otherwise have missed. You may yet learn something about yourself, as well about Mary Alyce in the days to come.
”
”
Joshunda Sanders (Women of the Post)
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Swift released the bowl in a strong drive. It sped obediently down the green, perfectly reproducing Daisy’s shot, though with more calculated momentum. Hitting Daisy’s bowl cleanly off the grass, it took her place right in front of the jack.
“He knocked my bowl into the ditch,” Daisy protested. “Is that legal?”
“Oh, yes,” Lord Llandrindon said. “A bit ruthless, but perfectly legal. Now it is properly referred to as a ‘dead bowl.’”
“My bowl is dead?” Daisy asked indignantly.
Swift returned her scowl with an implacable glance. “Never do an enemy a small injury.”
“Only you would quote Machiavelli during lawn bowling,” Daisy said through gritted teeth.
“Pardon,” Lord Llandrindon said politely, “but I believe it’s my turn.” Seeing that neither of them were paying attention, he shrugged and went to the delivery line. His bowl careened down the green and ended just beyond the jack.
“I always play to win,” Swift said to Daisy.
“Good God,” Daisy said in exasperation, “you sound exactly like my father. Have you ever considered the possibility that some people play just for the fun of it? As a pleasant activity to pass the time? Or must everything be brought down to life-and-death conflict?”
“If you’re not out to win, the game is pointless.”
Seeing that she had completely slipped from Swift’s notice, Cassandra Leighton sought to intervene. “I fancy it’s my shot now, Mr. Swift. Would you please be so kind as to retrieve a bowl for me?”
Swift complied with barely a glance at her, his attention riveted on Daisy’s small, tense face.
“Here,” he said brusquely, thrusting the bowl into Miss Leighton’s hands.
“Perhaps you could advise me…” Miss Leighton began, but her voice faded as Swift and Daisy continued to bicker.
“All right, Mr. Swift,” Daisy said coolly. “If you can’t enjoy a simple game of bowls without making it into a war, you’ll have a war. We’ll play for points.”
She wasn’t quite certain if she had moved forward or if he had, but suddenly they were standing very close, his head bent over hers.
“You can’t beat me,” Swift said in a low voice. “You’re a novice, and a woman besides. It wouldn’t be fair unless I was assigned a handicap.”
“Your teammate is Miss Leighton,” she whispered sharply. “In my opinion, that’s enough of a handicap. And are you implying that women can’t bowl as well as men?”
“No. I’m saying straight out they can’t.”
Daisy felt a rush of outrage, augmented by a fiery desire to pound him into the ground. “War,” she repeated, stalking back to her side of the green.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Scandal in Spring (Wallflowers, #4))
“
Perhaps the most common device for giving people focus and direction is goal setting, but goals, as often as they are used, have their pros and cons. Sure, if you can convince everybody that profits must increase 20% next quarter or we’re going out of business, people will hurry around looking for ways to hype profits by 20%. When discussing “mission” I assigned Susan a goal of 25% improvement in sales, based on what I calculated was needed to avoid closing the factory and on what I felt her district could reasonably provide. It was not a number pulled from the ether, and I went to some length to explain this to her. Short of any such basis in reality, people will often do the easiest things, such as firing 20% of the workforce, canceling vital R&D programs, or simply not making any payments to suppliers. In other words, they will take achieving the goal as seriously as they feel you were in setting it; they will sense whether you have positioned yourself at the Schwerpunkt. Goals, as we all know, can be motivators. Cypress Semiconductor, a communications-oriented company founded in 1982, used to have a computer that tracked the thousands of self-imposed goals that its people fed into the system. Cypress founder T. J. Rodgers identified this automated goal tending system as the heart of his management style and a big factor in the company’s early success.136 Frankly, I find this philosophy depressing, not to mention a temptation to focus inward: If the boss places great importance on entering and tracking goals, as he obviously does, then that is what the other employees are going to consider important.137 In any case, what’s the big deal about meeting or missing a goal? A goal is an intention at a point in time. It is, to a large extent, an arbitrary target, whether you set it or someone above you assigns it. And we all know that numerical goals can be gamed, like banking (delaying) sales that we could have made this quarter to help us make quota next quarter. Unlike a Schwerpunkt, which gives focus and direction for chaotic and uncertain situations, what does a goal tell you? Just keep your head down and continue plugging away?
”
”
Chet Richards (Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business)
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A throat cleared. “Earth to Arik. Come in, boss.”
With brows drawn, Arik glared at his beta. “What?”
“I was asking what had your boxers in a knot.”
“You know I go commando.”
“Usually, but something obviously has your panties in a twist. Spill.”
Oh, he spilled all right. Arik yanked off the hat and flung it against the wall and then swiveled his chair to get it over with.
Indrawn breath. A snicker. A full-on guffaw.
Arik swirled again and tossed deadly visual daggers at his second. “I fail to see the humor in my butchered mane.”
“Dude. Have you seen it? It is bad. What did you do to piss Dominic off? Seduce one of his daughters?”
“Actually one of his granddaughters did this to me!”
He couldn’t help the incredulous note. The effrontery of the act still got to him.
A thump and a shake of the wall as Hayder hit it, his shoulders shaking with laughter. “A girl did that to you?” His beta convulsed with mirth, not at all daunted by Arik’s glower and tapping fingers.
“This is not amusing.”
“Oh, come on, dude. Of all the people to have a hair mishap, you are the worst.”
“I look like an idiot.”
“Only because you didn’t let her finish hacking the rest off.”
His fingers froze as he took his gaze off the screen for a moment to address the travesty. “Cut off my mane?” Was his beta delusional?
“Well, yeah. You know, to even it out so it doesn’t show.”
A growl rumbled forth, more beast than man, his lion not at all on board with any more trimming.
“Okay, if you’re not keen on that, then what about a hair weave? Maybe we could get you a platinum one, or pink for contrast since you’re being such a prissy princess about it.”
That did it.
A lion could take only so much.
Arik dove over his desk and tackled his beta. Over they went with a thump and a tangle of limbs.
As he was slamming Hayder’s head off the floor, snarling, “Take it back!” to his beta’s chortled, “We’ll get your nails done while they’re weaving,” Leo strode in.
A giant of a man, he didn’t even have to strain as he grabbed them each by a shoulder and yanked them apart.
But he didn’t stop there.
He slammed their heads together before shoving them down.
Arik and Hayder sat on the carpeted floor, nursing robin’s eggs, united in their glare for the pride’s omega, also known as the peacemaker.
Of course, Leo’s version of peace wasn’t always gentle, which was why he was perfect for the pride.
The behemoth with the mellow outlook on life took a seat in a chair, which groaned ominously.
“You do know that the staff two floors down can hear the pair of you acting like ill-behaved cubs.”
“He started it!” Arik stabbed a finger at his beta.
He had no problem assigning blame. Delegation was something an alpha did well.
Hayder didn’t even deny his guilt. “I did. But can you blame me? He was pissing and moaning about this precious mane. All I did was offer a solution, and he took offense.”
“I assume we’re talking about the missing chunk of hair on our esteemed leader’s head?” Leo shook his neatly trimmed dark crown. “I keep telling you that vanity is your weakness.”
“And chocolate chip ice cream is yours. We all have our vices,” Arik grumbled as he heaved himself off the floor and into his leather-padded seat— with built-in heating pad and massager because a man in his position did enjoy his luxuries.
“My vice is beautiful women,” Hayder announced with a grin, adopting a lounging pose on the floor.
Felines were king when it came to acting as if embarrassing positions weren’t accidental at all.
“Don’t talk to me about women right now. I’m still angry at the one who did this.”
“I think I’m missing a key point,” Leo stated.
It didn’t take long to bring Leo up to speed. To his credit, the pride omega didn’t laugh— long.
”
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Eve Langlais (When an Alpha Purrs (A Lion's Pride, #1))
“
but she’d purposefully turn in a paper late or miss an assignment so she’d fall closer to the middle.
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Karin Slaughter (Pretty Girls)
“
My greatest fear. is to have lived in such a way to miss the mark, not to be able to accomplish my assignment on earth; making meaning and impacting lives.
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Bernard Kelvin Clive
“
Most students don't trust their own insights and questions when they are reading a biblical assignment. They expect that there must be a point, a right reading that they're missing, and that they don't have the authority to suggest any other interpretation.
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Timothy Beal (The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book)
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Values What we value is what we love and assign importance to. Often we do not take responsibility for what we value. We are caught up in valuing the approval of men rather than the approval of God (John 12:43); because of this misplaced value, we miss out on life. We think that power, riches, and pleasure will satisfy our deepest longing, which is really for love. When
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Henry Cloud (Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No)
“
The USS Pargo, known for its participation in the search for the missing attack submarine USS Scorpion in 1968, was altered to conduct acoustic trials leading to acoustic alterations of all U.S. submarines. She was also involved in artic research during which the USS Pargo surfaced at the North Pole several times. Following this she was assigned to station keeping duty off the coast of New London and conducted various trials in the Caribbean. The Pargo was decommissioned on April 14, 1995 and scraped in 1996.
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Hank Bracker
“
All the while the acid of overactivity eats holes in our souls. And from those holes leaks the cry of the unfulfilled calling that never quite happened. We said yes to so much that we missed what I call our “Best Yes” assignments—simply because we didn’t heed the warning of the whispers within that subtle space.
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Lysa TerKeurst (The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands)
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But what if this is the mission God has for you right now? He might use the articles to help someone. Or maybe He has a gift for you on the other end of this. But you won’t know until you roll up your sleeves and accept the assignment.” Birdie tucked a stray curl behind Rosalie’s ear. “And it’s even better than that. God’s not like the boss who gives you an assignment and then leaves you to do it all by yourself. He’s a loving father, who walks you through each step. And if you miss one—forget to pray or lose your way—He’s still there, loving you, calling you His child. It’s amazing.” Rosalie longed to trust her newfound Savior. She craved His guidance, His love. But prying her fingers off of her own life, and trusting herself to God, pained her. “I’m so used to only having myself to rely on, Birdie. I like being the one to rivet on my own.” “Yeah,” Birdie conceded. “It’s hard—impossible really—to let go of that on your own. The good news is, sweets, you don’t have to. Even the letting go is by His grace alone.” “You’re right.” “Of course I am. Because it’s the truth of God’s Word.” Birdie nodded determinedly. “Plus, think of it this way, if nothing else, maybe dozens, or hundreds, or who knows how many ladies will sign up to work at the plant to be just like ‘Seattle’s Own Rosie the Riveter.
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Tricia Goyer (Love Finds You in Victory Heights, Washington)
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In assigning Palmer to the margins of official Methodist history and denying the mysticism that gave birth to her powerful ministry and theology, Methodist theologians and historians have missed one of the greatest gifts the Methodist tradition has to offer the church universal. To put it another way, dismissing Palmer from the “important” and “real” history and theology of Methodism, is something like dismissing Catherine of Siena or Hildegard von Bingen from the “real” story of Catholicism. It is time for Phoebe Palmer to be restored to her rightful place as one of the great saints and mystics in the history of the church.
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Elaine A. Heath (Naked Faith: The Mystical Theology of Phoebe Palmer (Princeton Theological Monograph Series Book 108))
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The Guildhall was in the middle of Plano, Texas. Plano Texas, is brown and not much else. They have a Frito-Lay factory, parking lots, and a videogame school. At the time, I kept a strict vegan diet and didn’t drive. There was nothing to eat and nowhere to go. But the latter didn’t matter; when you were at the Guildhall you had no life outside the Guildhall. I remember the first day of orientation, sitting in a lecture hall with my future
classmates and the spouses they’d brought with them to this wasted brown land. One of the other level design students had his wife and their year-old child with him. “Give her a kiss and say good-bye,” the director of the school told him in front of the assembly.
“You’re not going to see her for two years.”
I was in Plano, Texas, for six months.
You’re at school from nine to five. You stay after and do your work with the teams they’ve assigned you to. Late at night you drag yourself home and do your actual
homework. Maybe you get a few hours of sleep. The idea behind the school is that you’re always in what the Big Games Industry calls “crunch time”: unpaid overtime. Your masters want the game done by Christmas, so you don’t leave the office until it’s done. This is why people in the industry aren’t healthy; this is why they burn out and quit games within a few years. This is why you miss the second year of your daughter’s life. This is their scheme: you put up with crunch time all the time while you’re in school, so when you work for a big publisher—or, rather, a studio contracted by a big publisher—you won’t complain about being told you can’t see your daughter until the game’s done. The Guildhall boasts an over 90 percent employment rate, and it’s true: they will get you a job in the games industry. That’s because they will make you into exactly the kind of worker the games industry wants. It’s that kind of school.
And it works; that’s the horrifying thing. My classmates were all self-identified gamers and game fans and were willing to put up with anything in order to live their dream of making videogames. That’s the carrot the industry dangles, and it’s what we take away from the industry when we create a form to which anyone can contribute. As long as the industry is allowed to continue acting as the gatekeeper to game creation, people will
continue to accept the ways in which the industry tramples the lives and well-being of the creative people who make games, rather than challenging the insane level of control that publishers ask over developers’ lives.
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Anna Anthropy (Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form)
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As they walked out the door, Rick said, “You seem to be enjoying this case much more than any of the others.”
She looked up at him with a sober expression and said in a business-like manner, “I enjoy all my cases, Rick. This one isn’t any different.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, sure. Since you feel that way, why don’t I read those letters for you? Then you could work on something else.”
As they stood at the elevator, waiting for it to open, she said, “You wouldn’t be interested. I’m sure of it.”
“But the last case we had, you assigned me to read this guy’s journal. I found it to be quite interesting.”
She glanced at him and saw a knowing grin on his face. “Okay. If you must know, I’m really enjoying this case and the letters are… well…”
“Romantic?” he teased. “Of course, I wouldn’t be interested in something like that. Is that what you think?” He winked at her. “After all, I’m just a guy. Men wouldn’t be interested in a bit of romance. Right?
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Linda Weaver Clarke (Her Lost Love (Amelia Moore Detective Series #5))
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Men have it worse … women have it worse … or no one has it worse? These are the options we can consider. This is my ridiculous game for us to speak of, here, as we view the ravine. We should establish categories, I said, and assign points to each category depending on how important that category is to overall life happiness. There should be a winner for each one. We should keep score. That seems fair. After debating and assigning points, then tallying them up while the possums scrambled in the darkness around us, we agreed that men had it better.
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Catherine Lacey (Nobody Is Ever Missing)
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There certainly is no panic of the really train or bus to be missed because you will hold your individual automobile. Correctly there would be no plain time frame. You understand how you can yet assign a Month-to-month auto rental or any sort of such of cream of the crop vehicles. The enormous brand names are also accessible to hire. Corporate specific essentially make use of such exceptional vehicles to show their standard in addition to their personal business worth. Comfy vehicles to some sort of any sort of sector of car have the ability to be teased behalf to their different rates. All resorts of 5-star in addition to 7-star does not include the vehicles, however, work with vehicles. For that reason, we are able to simply envision the well worth of these assigning facilities there are lots of a Month-to-month auto rental and every these service supply with a much better service as different to others. When it comes to such reason vehicle rentals are taking a prospering in the company in addition to the regional marketplace. Therefore, the group needs to support their well worth in the market using providing a type of facilities for their consumers. Not merely in locally nevertheless in bunches of huge business towards other fundamentals requirements.
Just as travelling within any of the individual owning if you figure out a little bit magnificent on the edge and seem like acquiring it on the other hand you still cannot for the reason that they won't drop in for you however here by methods of this Auto Lease Dubai you could acquire whatever you figure out in purchasing. The program can be all set according to your choices equally as not according to the typical timings of public transportation. During the Car Rental solution, the client will hold no concerns pertaining to the protection or safeguarding of the auto. One can pick Automobile Lease Dubai along with doing accordingly it will turn into unproblematic to opt for a vehicle of their option even as choices any auto. You be up to the trip to the appropriate location that you wish by applying the aid of this car rental. Called for credentials for transport are the look out of the services nonetheless we have to be reliable that it's a superior company with every obligatory certificate approved. If a person does not be full of the ability to get an automobile even though one could easily hire an automobile as it's not at every little thing costly to utilize this improvement.
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Auto Hire Function as Improvement For Daily Travelling
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Fortune may favor the brave guppy, but what if you aren't a risk-taker by nature? According to psychologists Tory Higgins and Heidi Grant Halvorson, people can be divided into two personality categories: those who are promotion focused and those who are prevention focused.13 Those whose motivation is promotion focused are comfortable taking chances, like to work quickly, dream big, and think creatively: they are natural risk-takers, focused on maximizing gain. In contrast, people who are prevention focused tend to concentrate on staying safe, work slowly and meticulously, worry what might go wrong if they aren't careful enough, and focus on preserving what they have. So for the risk averse who are trying to convince themselves to try something new, the trick is not to focus on what will be gained by venturing forth, but to instead focus on what might be lost by standing still. For example, if I'm a really prevention-focused person thinking about asking for a promotion, I shouldn't try to psych myself up for it by imagining all the accolades I might win or the new projects I might take on. I should focus on what I might miss out on—the great projects I might not get assigned to, or the money I'm leaving on the table.
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Whitney Johnson (Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work)
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I’m going to focus on your hands, Mr. Harrison. Hands can be complicated.” He smiled as if she’d just explained to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Christmas often fell on the twenty-fifth of December. “I like hands,” he said, taking his seat. “They can be windows to the soul too. What shall I do with these hands you intend to immortalize?” She hadn’t thought that far ahead, it being sufficient challenge to choose a single aspect of him to sketch. Fleur and Amanda came skipping back into the room, each clutching a sketch pad. “You will sketch the girls, and I will sketch you, while the girls sketch whomever they please.” The plan was brilliant; everybody had an assigned task. Amanda’s little brows drew down. “I want to watch Mr. Harrison. Fleur can sketch you, Aunt Jen. You have to sit very still, though.” “An unbroken chain of artistic indulgence,” Mr. Harrison said, accepting a sketch pad and pencil from Fleur. “Miss Fleur, please seat yourself on the hearth, though you might want a pillow to make the ordeal more comfortable.” Amanda grabbed two burgundy brocade pillows off the settee, tossed one at Fleur, and dropped the other beside Elijah’s rocker. Jenny took the second rocking chair and flipped open her sketch pad. Her subject sat with the morning sun slanting over his shoulder, one knee crossed over the other, the sketch pad on his lap. Amanda watched from where she knelt at his elbow, and Fleur… Fleur crossed one knee over the other—an unladylike pose, but effective for balancing a sketch pad—and glowered at Jenny as if to will Jenny’s image onto the page by visual imperative. “Your sister has beautiful eyebrows,” Mr. Harrison said to his audience. “They have the most graceful curve. It’s a family trait, I believe.” Amanda crouched closer. “Does that mean I have them too?” He glanced over at her, his expression utterly serious. “You do, though yours are a touch more dramatic. When you make your bows, gentlemen will write sonnets to the Carrington sisters’ eyebrows.” “Papa’s
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Grace Burrowes (Lady Jenny's Christmas Portrait (The Duke's Daughters, #5; Windham, #8))
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1. Create intimacy: You’ll get more trust—and capture the attention of your prospects—by establishing a personal connection. Your emails should read as if one person has written it to another: one to one. This can be achieved by: using a personal, or plain-text template; using “you” instead of “we”, or “I”; telling stories; and making good use of personalization. For an even greater effect, you can add subtle personalization throughout your copy. For example: “…this is what we’ve heard from other people in [ Tampa ]”. 2. Make users feel special: On top of personalization, you can create exclusivity: “This offer is only for our most engaged users” “…it’s for early adopters” Or appeal to vanity: “Our most successful users want to feel this way…” 3. Demonstrate that you understand their reality: You can create obvious qualifications everyone wants to have assigned to themselves, for example “…people who care about maximizing their return on investment”; or “…savvy marketers”. Illustrate product benefits and value with clear examples that relate to the unique situation of your users. 4. Create urgency: As Zapier did, you can also get creative with deadlines. Use coupons with limited-time offers to accentuate the fear of missing out (FOMO)17: “Offer only available until June 4th…” “Only a few people get this plan…” 5. Use clear actions: Use a CTA that clearly establishes the next steps. Repeat it throughout the email, coming at it from different angles. Use the P.S. to attract the eye and to reinforce the action you want users to take (when appropriate). Keep your emails simple and your messaging scannable. It’s important for users to be able to get the email at a glance. Short and sweet often outperforms long and complex emails. You want a near-instant reaction from your readers. Your email has to build up to the desired action. Use copy to overcome objections, and accentuate the desire to buy or engage. A good email has to: capture attention through the subject line, personalization, or a story; build reader interest by demonstrating either the benefit or the problem; build desire to act by creating information gaps, time constraints, or the fear of missing out; and drive action through a well-timed CTA, telling users exactly what you want them to do. These are really just the four steps of the AIDA model18 (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) applied to email copywriting. Don’t get intimidated by copywriting. Emails that are too polished often don’t work as well. Get started crafting your own email offers. We’ll get started working on subject lines in the next chapter.
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Étienne Garbugli (The SaaS Email Marketing Playbook: Convert Leads, Increase Customer Retention, and Close More Recurring Revenue With Email)
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Mom turned to Bailey. “So I hear you want to go to a party this Friday?” I looked up. “I thought you said you had a date? Aren't you going out with that boy this Friday?” Oh, if looks could kill. I guess I missed the memo about sisters keeping secrets.
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Sarah Gittens (Zoe and the Best Assignment Ever (100 Things to do, Before I'm 22 Book 1))
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Beneath the explicit acts by which I posit and object out in front of myself, in a definite relation with other objects and with definite characteristics that can be observed, beneath, then, perceptions properly so-called, there is, sustaining them, a deeper function without which perceived objects would lack the mark of reality, as it is missing for the schizophrenic, and by which the objects begin to count or to have value for us. This is the movement that carries us beyond subjectivity, that places us in the world prior to every science and every verification through a sort of 'faith,' or 'primordial opinion'--or that, on the contrary, becomes bogged down in our private appearances. In this domain of originary opinion, hallucinatory illusion is possible even though hallucination is never perception...because here we are still within pre-predicative being, and because the connection between appearance and total experiences is merely implicit and presumptive, even in the case of true perception...The world remains the vague place of all experiences. It accommodates, pell-mell, true objects as well as individual and fleeting fantasies--because it is an individual that encompasses everything and not a collection of objects linked together through causal relations. To have hallucinations and, in general, to imagine is to exploit this tolerance of the pre-predicative world as well as our vertiginous proximity to all of being in syncretic experience. Thus, we only succeed in giving an account of the hallucinatory deception by stripping perception of its apodictic certainty and perceptual consciousness of its full self-possession...The perceived is and remains, despite all critical training, beneath the level of doubt and demonstration. The sun 'rises' for the scientist just as much as it does for the uneducated person, and our scientific representations of the solar system remain merely so many rumors, like the lunar landscapes--we never believe in them in the sense in which we believe in the rising of the sun. The rising of the sun, and the perceived in general, is 'real'--we immediately assign it to the world. Each perception, although always potentially 'crossed out' and pushed over to the realm of illusions, only disappears in order to leave a place for another perception that corrects it. Of course, each thing can, apres coup, appear uncertain, but at least it is certain for us that there are things, that is, that there is a world. To wonder if the world is real is to fail to understand what one is saying, since the world is not a sum of things that one could always cast into doubt, but precisely the inexhaustible reservoir from which things are drawn...Correlatively, we must surely deny perceptual consciousness full self-possession and the immanence that would exclude every illusion. If hallucinations are to be possible, consciousness must at some moment cease to know what it does, otherwise it would be conscious of constituting an illusion, it would no longer adhere to it, and there would thus be no more illusion...It is simply necessary that the self-coincidence with myself, such as it is established in the cogito, must never be a real coincidence, and must merely be an intentional and presumptive coincidence. In fact a thickness of duration already intervenes between myself who has just had this thought and myself who thinks that I have just had this thought, and I can always doubt whether that thought, which has already gone by, was really as I currently see it...But my confidence in reflection ultimately comes down to taking up the fact of temporality and the fact of the world as the invariable frame of every illusion and of every disillusion: I only know myself in my inherence in the world and in time; I only know myself in ambiguity.
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Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Phenomenology of Perception)
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In my resistance, I knew that there was more to the assignment. To think of an assignment as nothing more than a grade would be a missed opportunity as it is. But when there's resistance, it's an even bigger indicator that something's going on, there's a deeper significance. And I knew there was something to the story that was to come. And I was motivated. There's a certain excitement that arises when one realizes they're at the onset of a personal transformation.
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Kristina Smeriglio (Falling Into Fire)
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It is not the object of your search that is important; it is the faculty of looking. The ability to simply look without motive is missing in the world today. Everybody is a psychological creature, wanting to assign meaning to everything. Seeking is not about looking for something. It is about enhancing your perception, your very faculty of seeing.
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Sadhguru (Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy)
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Turning the social order upside down, she had undermined the carefully orchestrated moral geography of the Puritan meetinghouse. Male dominance was unquestioned, and ranks so clearly spelled out, that no one could miss the power outlined in something so simple as a seating chart. Members and nonmembers sat apart; husbands and wives were divided; men sat on one side of the room, women on the other. Prominent men occupied the first two rows of benches: the first was reserved exclusively for magistrates, the second for the families of the minister and governor, as well as wealthy merchants. The more sons a man had, the better his pew. Age, reputation, marriage, and estate were all properly calculated before a church seat was assigned.
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Nancy Isenberg (White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America)
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Everybody is quiet. ″Who read the thirty pages I assigned last night?″ Miss Saunders asks.
Most of the hands go up, including mine, even though I didn’t read none of it.
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Sharon G. Flake (The Skin I'm In)
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Naturally, reading led to writing. The opposite side of the same coin. I created words with my pen where people didn't giggle and point when I spoke. Where my parents tucked me in. Where I didn't stutter. Where I had chores assigned by a chart on the wall with my name on it. Where the seat at the table was mine and I was missed if the bell rang and I didn't fill it. Where I was always the prince who rescued the princess, the Hobbit who destroyed the ring, the boy who saved Narnia. Where I was Pip.
Sometimes I wrote all night. Filling pad after pad. True or make believe mattered little. Life was in the telling. In the exhale. Writing became the outlet for the one-sided conversation inside my head. The only place I knew complete expression. A thought encapsulated. A breath deep enough to fill me. Punctuation with certainty. Writing was how I worked out the goings on the inside. The act of making story made sense of what I couldn't make sense of. Like being an orphan and never being adopted.
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Charles Martin (Unwritten)